The new law would make it easier for migrants who are stuck in the camps to get medical help on the Australian mainland. In the old situation, the Minister of Home Affairs determined who was eligible; [in the new law] a medical committee would make the final decision.

In recent years, some 500 people have been transferred to Australia for medical reasons.

Senate

The Senate will vote on the amendment later this week. It is expected that a majority of parliamentarians there will also support the adjustment.

Prime Minister Morrison has already said that he does not intend to resign if the law would be finally passed. Elections were already planned for this spring.

The federal Liberal-National Coalition government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison suffered a blow on Tuesday, when it lost a vote on legislation amending the Migration Act in the House of Representatives. The Senate passed the laws the following day: here.

Last weekend, less than three months before a general election must be held, two more cabinet ministers announced their departures from Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition government. That took to six the number of top-level ministers or ex-ministers who have made similar declarations in the past month that they will not contest the looming election. The corporate media depicted the resignations as simply “more rats deserting a sinking ship,” pointing to media polls predicting the government’s defeat. More fundamentally, however, the desertions point to an intensifying breakup of the Liberal and National parties and a deep crisis of the entire Australian political establishment: here.

The in-fighting tearing apart the city-based Liberal Party within Australia’s governing Liberal-National Coalition visibly spread to the regional-based National Party this week: here.